Chapter 1: The Insider Prologue

Lake awoke to feel his whole body screaming; feeling this he remembered what had happened, how his house had burned down with him and his whole family inside.

Opening his eyes to find his vision extremely blurry he saw that he was in a hospital room inside a transparent box. There were wires and tubes running in and out of his body everywhere, so many that he couldn't see past his chest.

Attempting to move his arm he found he was unable to. Lake wasn't sure if he was too heavenly burned or if it was strapped down. Unaware that this slight action had alerted the nurse standing in the room, Lake continued to try to move his various body parts and found he was only able to slightly move his neck and jaw but he had a breathing tube in his mouth so he didn't think he would be able to speak.

Hearing a zipping noise, Lake moved his eyes to see three people in hazmat suits entering the transparent box around him, " I'll be damned, He is awake and look he's actually staring at us, Lake can you hear us?"

Lake tried to shake his head yes but found it to hard so he just started blinking, Seeing this the man in the hazmat suit said " I'll take that as a yes, we're going to take the breathing tube out so we can speak to you blink if that's alright with you." Hearing this, Lake Continued blinking.

The man started to unstrap the mask and remove the tube in Lake's throat. After taking the tube out the man put an oxygen mask back onto his face. "Are you able to breathe on your own?" Taking a labored breath, Lake answered " Yes."

Hearing his own voice Lake couldn't believe how raspy it was. He started to laugh but as soon as he did the amount of pain it caused made him stop. Seeing Lake's face twist in pain, the man said " Don't strain yourself, you're heavily injured. I'm Dr. Field And this is Dr..." Not caring who they were, Lake croaked out " My family?"

After He said this everyone was quiet, after a few seconds of this lake could feel the fear building. He had assumed that his family had made it out since he was the only one who slept on the second floor.

Deep down Lake knew His situation wasn't good. He believed his arms and legs were gone either from the fire or amputation. The only thing keeping him calm was that his family was going to be fine, and they were in the waiting room hoping he would wake up.

Lake could feel pain in his chest and couldn't tell if it was emotional or physical, But he could hear the beeping of the machines around him getting louder and see that one of the people beside Dr. Field started moving to readouts around the room.

" Dr. He's about to have another heart attack!" Moving into action Dr. Field said " We need to sedate him." The other doctor grabbed a syringe and injected it into a iv dip connected to Lake.

Dr. Field leaned down next to Lake's ear and said " In case this is the last time we speak, what do you want to do with the Insurance money your parents left you?"

Lake realized this was probably the closest thing he would get to a will, so he said something that had always weighed heavily on his mind. " My cousin James, A full time nurse for him."

James was his cousin on his mom's side and had been in a car accident as a child that had left him with brain damage and had killed James' father leaving his mother alone to take care of him.

Turning around to the person who had not moved from behind him, Dr. Field said " Did you hear that Ms. Ludwik." Only now did Lake realize that the third person in the room was his family's attorney.

" I guess I should have listened to the introduction." thought Lake as he could feel his consciousness fading and see his vision turning black. " Dr. His heart is failing." hearing this Dr. Field said, "Prep the paddles." but he knew this was it, Lake was never going to wake up again, Since Lake had been admitted it had been one organ failure after another and no one could believe he had survived the ambulance ride to the hospital.

" Clear!" Nothing, no reaction at all, Lake was dead. This was the second time Lake's heart had stopped and it took them 3 minutes to restart it last time. " I'm calling it 4:19 PM January 6 2022." After saying this the doctor turned to the person standing quietly in the back of the room. " Ms. Ludwik Let me walk you out of the sterile room. There are a few things I would like to say to you."

Stepping out of the room there was no way for the two of them to know Lake hadn't truly died but was currently standing in a column of light. Lake had heard people say there was a tunnel of light when you were dying but they never mentioned the giant man.

" Is that god?" Lake wondered out loud, kind of hoping for an answer. They were both floating in what seemed to be a black void. The only light was what was illuminating them.

Looking closer the giant seemed to have a small dagger sticking out of his chest. After a few seconds of waiting, Lake couldn't help but guess that this was just where dead people were sent, and they were going to be neighbors in the afterlife.

" Well I'm able to speak so maybe he can too." Lake's body seemed to have recovered so he thought it was a little weird that the man was still injured. Taking a deep breath, Lake screamed "Helloooo!" After screaming, Lake saw the man twitch and was relieved that at least he would have something to do for eternity, startling a half dead guy.

Getting ready to scream again, Lake saw the man's eyes open. After them staring at each other, Lake saw the man smile and then say. "So, You've passed my test." Not remembering any test Lake yelled back " No we're dead, you're in the afterlife." The man started to laugh but stopped soon after from the pain, seeing that Lake remembered doing this right before his death. " No, what I mean is the fact that you're here means you meet the requirement I set. Unlike you I'm still in the process of dying."

Seeing this was turning into a situation where he was going to get something, Lake asked "What requirements?" The man moved slightly to show he was holding a piece of paper with what looked to be blood scribbled on it. " I cast a summon soul spell a few days ago to look for a successor, the requirement, they be at least 80% like me, so good job dying it really helped me out." Lake looked down at himself and said "I think your spell failed, I don't think I'm even a percent of your size."

The man once again tried to laugh but instead coughed out blood. " Stop joking around and listen I'm running out of time. What's your name?" After he said that the man reached down into his pocket to pull something out. " Oh my name's Lake." Pulling out what seemed to be an orb the man said " That's funny my name's Laka."

Lake didn't really see what was funny, and it seemed to show on his face because Laka said " Not only are the first three letters the same but my mother named me after a lake that was close to her village growing up."

That made more sense, Lake figured as far as coincidences went that was pretty good. " Alright before I give this to you; Do you accept becoming my successor?" Lake couldn't see any reason not to say yes so he accepted " Yes, um Laka."

Passing the orb to Lake, Laka said " It's fine you can call me whatever you want. I call the one before me Master even though I only knew him for like 10 minutes before he died." Lake Looked at the orb that dwarfed him and said " How do I?" " Just touch it, it will do the rest."

After hearing this, Lake reached out and as soon as his hand made contact the orb disappeared. " Wow! Where'd it go? " Pointing at Lake, Laka said, " It's inside you now. If you never need it in the future my master said the best way is to pretend to take it out of your pocket. It seems to like the little deception." Lake was a little confused but decided to let it go he was sure he would understand eventually.

"Alright time for the speech. I'm no good at them so I'll just steal my masters. The insider is a mantle created the first time someone concealed their identity to steal something they wanted. But over the generations it's come to have a righteous purpose it's been handed down to the unfortunate over countless generations and their wish to change the world, that has given it its mission to steal reality from the very gods and I've gotten close, this time I made it to the pantheon but my identity was seen through. Then my master started to lose consciousness and said, Lies change the world; Deception becomes truth. And died, I guess that was some sort of poem he wrote. I always thought it would of made more sense the other way around but you know, He seemed to think he was some kind of hero but in reality I just used the insider to have everything I ever wanted, so it's really up to you. I only made it to the realm of the demigods so the mission my master gave me was really hard and I don't plan on burdening you like that, and you would just die in the process so just do what you want. The only thing you have to do is pass on the mantle before you die." historical

Lake couldn't help but think he would've preferred it if it had been Laka's Master that had summoned him instead; he sounded like someone Lake could have looked up to. " Ok I'm about to die, so I'm gonna cast a spell to reincarnate you to the same world my master sent me, it was a nice first world. The insider will walk you through it, just know your main goal will be to collect world items, usually it's like a cool gem or a big sword; Ok goodbye."

Laka did something with the piece of paper he had shown Lake earlier and Lake felt himself start to fade away, and wondered if that meant Laka was planning on dying alone. " Am I being sent now?" That was the last thing Lake said before he disappeared.